Ali smashed his zulfiqar into Wajed’s, spinning off the momentum to duck Aqisa’s blade as it passed over his head.
How did you expect Nahri to react? You gave her no warning and you arrived carrying Darayavahoush’s dagger. Did you think she’d invite you to talk about books over tea?
He brought his weapon up to block Wajed’s next strike.
I still can’t believe she thinks I wanted any of this. After all, Ali didn’t exactly ask to get kidnapped and shot by her precious Afshin. And he didn’t believe for a second that Nahri had gone these five years without learning about Qui-zi and Darayavahoush’s other innumerable crimes. How could she still defend him?
He pushed off the Qaid’s blade, whirling around to face Aqisa again, narrowly parrying her next blow.
Love—for it was apparent even to Ali, who was typically oblivious to such things, that there had been a bit more than the usual Afshin-to-Nahid devotion between Nahri and that brutish demon of a man. What a useless, distracting emotion. How ridiculous to be flashed a pretty smile and lose all sense of—
Aqisa smashed him across the face with the flat part of her sword.
“Ow!” Ali hissed in pain and then lowered his zulfiqar. He touched his cheek, his fingers coming away bloody.
Aqisa snorted. “It isn’t wise to spar while distracted.”
“I wasn’t distracted,” he said heatedly.
Wajed lowered his weapon as well. “Yes, you were. I’ve been training you since you were waist high. I know what you look like when you’re not focusing. You, on the other hand …” He turned to Aqisa, his expression admiring. “You’re excellent with that zulfiqar. You should join the Royal Guard. You’d get your own.”
Aqisa snorted again. “I don’t take orders well.”
Wajed shrugged. “The offer remains.” He gestured to the opposite corner of the Citadel courtyard where Lubayd appeared to be holding court before an enthralled group of young recruits, no doubt telling some highly sensationalized tale of the trio’s adventures in Am Gezira. “Why don’t we take a break and join your loud friend for some coffee?”
Aqisa grinned and headed off, but Wajed held Ali back another moment.
“Are you all right?” he asked, lowering his voice. “I know you, Ali. You’re not just distracted, you’re holding back. I’ve seen you get the same look in your eyes when you’re training others.”
Ali pressed his mouth in a thin line. Wajed had struck closer to the truth than he liked. Ali was holding back, though not quite in the way the Qaid meant. And it wasn’t only memories of Nahri that were distracting him.
It was the lake. It had been pulling on him since he arrived at the Citadel, drawing Ali to the walls more times than he could count to press his hands against the cool stone, sensing the water on the other side. When he closed his eyes, the whispers he’d heard on the ferry rushed back: an incomprehensible buzz that made his heart pound with an urgency he didn’t understand. His marid abilities felt closer—wilder—than they had in years, as though with a single snap of his fingers, he could fill the Citadel’s courtyard with a blanket of fog.
None of which he could tell Wajed. Or frankly, anyone at all. “It’s nothing,” Ali insisted. “I’m just tired.”
Wajed eyed him. “Is this about your family?” When Ali grimaced, sympathy flooded the Qaid’s face. “You didn’t even give the palace a day, Ali. You should go home and try to talk to them.”
“I am home,” Ali replied. “My father wanted me raised in the Citadel, didn’t he?” As he spoke, his gaze caught a pair of guards heading out on duty. Both wore uniforms that had been heavily patched, and only one of them had a zulfiqar.
He shook his head, thinking of Muntadhir’s jewelry and the sumptuous platter of pastries. It was clear he wasn’t alone in noticing the discrepancy: he’d overheard plenty of grumbling comments since arriving at the Citadel. But while Ali suspected some of Daevabad’s economic woes could be traced to the Ayaanles’ quiet interfering—Musa had implied as much—he doubted his fellow soldiers knew to look so far. They’d only seen Daevabad’s feasting nobles and complacent palace denizens. They certainly didn’t seem to blame him; Ali had been warmly welcomed back with only a few teasing remarks about the reduced meals of lentils and bread he now shared with them.
Commotion at the main gate caught his attention, and Ali glanced over to see several soldiers scurrying toward the entrance … and then promptly backing away in a clumsy mob, a few men tripping over their feet as they dropped their gazes to the ground.
A single woman strode in. Tall, and with a willowy grace Ali recognized immediately, she wore an abaya the color of midnight, embroidered with clusters of diamonds that shone like stars. A long silver shayla had been drawn across her face, concealing all but her gray-gold eyes.
Angry gray-gold eyes. They locked on Ali’s face, and then she lifted her hand, gold bangles and pearl rings shimmering in the sunlight, to make a single rude beckoning motion before she abruptly turned around, marching straight back out.
Wajed looked at him. “Was that your sister?” Concern filled his voice. “I hope everything is well. She almost never leaves the palace.”
Ali cleared his throat. “I … I may have come to the Citadel without stopping to see her and my mother.”
Ali hadn’t known Daevabad’s Qaid—a massively built man who wore two centuries of war scars with pride—could go so pale. “You haven’t gone to see your mother?” He drew back as if to physically distance himself from what was about to happen to Ali. “You better not tell her I let you stay here.”
“Traitor.” Ali scowled but couldn’t deny the trickle of fear he felt as he moved to follow his sister.
Zaynab was already seated in the litter by the time he climbed inside. He pulled the curtain closed. “Ukhti, you really didn’t—”
His sister slapped him across the face.
“You ungrateful ass,” she seethed, yanking her shayla away from her face. “Five years I spend trying to save your life and you can’t be bothered to come see me? Then when I finally track you down, you think to greet me with a lecture on propriety?” She raised her hand again—a fist this time. “You self-righteous—”
Ali ducked her fist and then reached out and gripped her shoulders. “That’s not what this is, Zaynab! I swear!” He let her go.
“Then what is it, brat?” Her eyes narrowed in hurt. “Because I’ve half a mind to order my bearers to toss you in a trash pit!”
“I didn’t want to get you in trouble,” Ali rushed on. He reached for her hands. “I owe you my life, Zaynab. And Muntadhir said—”
“Muntadhir said what?” Zaynab interrupted. Her expression had softened, but anger still simmered in her voice. “Did you care to ask my opinion? Think for a moment that maybe I was perfectly capable of making a decision without my older brother’s permission?”
“No,” Ali confessed. All he’d been thinking about was getting away from the palace before he hurt someone else. And of course, in doing so, he had hurt someone else. “I’m sorry. I panicked. I wasn’t thinking and …” Zaynab yelped, and Ali abruptly released her hands, realizing he’d been squeezing them. “Sorry,” he whispered again.
Zaynab was staring at him, worried alarm replacing the anger in her face as her eyes swept his bloody face and filthy robe. She picked up his hand, running her thumb over his ragged fingernails.
Ali flushed, embarrassed at their state. “I’m trying to stop biting them. It’s a nervous tic.”
“A nervous tic,” she repeated. Her voice was trembling now. “You look terrible, akhi.” One of her hands lifted to his cheek, touching the ruined flesh where Suleiman’s scar had been carved.
Ali attempted and failed to force a weak smile. “Am Gezira wasn’t as welcoming as I’d hoped.”
Zaynab flinched. “I thought I’d never see you again. Every time I had a messenger, I feared they were coming to say that you … that you …” She seemed unable to finish the words, tears brimming in her eyes.
Ali pulled her into a hug. Zaynab clutched him, letting out a choked sob.
“I was so worried about you,” she wept. “I’m sorry, Ali. I begged him. I begged Abba every day. If I’d been able to convince him …”
“Oh, Zaynab, none of this is your fault.” Ali held his sister close. “How could you think that? You are a blessing; your letters and supplies … you have no idea how much I needed them. And I’m okay.” He pulled back to look at her. “Things were getting better there. And I’m here now, alive and already irritating you.” He managed a small smile this time.
She shook her head. “Things aren’t okay, Ali. Amma … she’s so angry.”
Ali rolled his eyes “I haven’t been back that long. How mad could she be?”
“She’s not angry at you,” Zaynab retorted. “Well … she is, but that’s not what I’m talking about. She’s angry at Abba. She came back to Daevabad in a rage when she learned what happened to you. She told Abba that she was going to drive him into debt.”
Ali could only imagine how that conversation had gone. “We’ll talk to her,” he assured her. “I’ll find a way to fix things. And forget all that for now. Tell me how you are.” He didn’t imagine any of this was easy for Zaynab, being the only one of them still on speaking terms with all of her squabbling relatives.
Zaynab’s composure cracked for a moment, but then a serene smile lit her face. “Everything’s fine,” she said smoothly. “God be praised.”
Ali didn’t believe that for a moment. “Zaynab …”
“Truly,” she insisted, though a little of the spark had left her eyes. “You know me … the spoiled princess without a care.”
Ali shook his head. “You’re not that.” He grinned. “Well, perhaps a little bit of the first part.” He ducked when she tried to swat him.
“I hope you guard your tongue better when you’re in front of Amma,” Zaynab warned. “She didn’t think highly of your dashing back to the Citadel and had some rather choice words to say about the fate that befalls ungrateful sons.”
Ali cleared his throat. “Anything … specific?” he asked, repressing a shiver.
Zaynab smiled sweetly. “I hope you’ve been saying your prayers, little brother.”
QUEEN HATSET’S SPRAWLING APARTMENTS WERE LOCATED on one of the highest levels of the palatial ziggurat, and Ali could not help but admire the view as they climbed the stairs. The city looked like a toy below, a sprawl of miniature buildings and scurrying ant-size inhabitants.
They ducked through the intricately carved teak door that led to his mother’s pavilion, and Ali held his breath. Designed to mimic the enchantments of her beloved homeland, the pavilion first appeared to be the ruins of a once magnificent coral castle, like the many human ones dotting the coast of Ta Ntry. But then with a teasing swirl of smoke and magic, it shimmered back to its glory before his eyes: a lush salon of gem-studded coral archways, lined with planters of rich marsh grasses, emerald palms, and Nile lilies. The pavilion had been a marriage gift from Ghassan, meant to ease the homesickness of his new Ayaanle bride—a gesture that spoke to a kinder version of his father than Ali had known. The air smelled of myrrh, and the sounds of a lute and laughter drifted from behind gently billowing purple and gold linen curtains.
Familiar laughter. Ali steeled himself as they passed the curtain. But whatever he was expecting … the scene before him was certainly not it.
Queen Hatset sat on a low couch, half bent over a beautifully carved lapis lazuli game board, chuckling with a shafit man and woman. A little girl sat in her lap, toying with the gold ornaments in his mother’s braids.
Ali stared in astonishment. It was the shafit girl and her father from the auction, the ones he’d feared he’d doomed. Here they were, with smiles on their faces, dressed in clothing befitting Ayaanle nobles.
Hatset glanced up. Delight, relief, and not a little bit of mischief lit her gold eyes. “Alu! How lovely to finally see you.” She patted the little girl’s cheek and then handed her to the other woman—her mother, judging from the resemblance. “I’ve been teaching your friends how to play senet.” She rose to her feet gracefully, crossing the pavilion. “It seems I had quite a bit of time on my hands, waiting for you.”
Ali was still at a loss for words when his mother reached him. “I …”
She pulled him into a fierce hug. “Oh, baba,” she whispered, holding him tight. Her cheeks were wet. “God be praised for letting me look upon you again.”
Ali was caught off guard by the wave of emotion that swept him upon being in his mother’s arms again for the first time in years. Hatset. The woman who’d birthed him, whose family had betrayed him and then schemed to drag him away from the life he was building in Bir Nabat. He should have been furious—and yet as she pulled back to touch his cheek, he felt some of the anger he’d been carrying evaporate. God, but how many times had he looked at her face as a child and held the edge of her shayla, followed her absentmindedly through the harem, and cried for her in Ntaran during his first lonely, frightening nights at the Citadel?
“Peace be upon you, Amma,” he managed. The curious gazes of the shafit family brought him back to the present, and Ali stepped away, trying to clamp down on his emotions. “How did you—”
“I heard about their misfortune and decided to help.” Hatset glanced back at the shafit family with a smile. “I suggested they join my service here at the palace rather than return to their home. It is safer.”
The shafit woman touched her heart. “We are much indebted to you, my queen.”
Hatset shook her head and then pulled Ali forward firmly. “Nonsense, sister. It is a crime that you were ever even briefly separated.”
The woman blushed, bowing her head. “We’ll give you some time with your son.”
“Thank you.” His mother pushed him into the couch with what seemed like unnecessary force and then glanced at the remaining attendants. “My ladies, would you mind seeing if the kitchens can prepare some proper Ntaran food for my son?” She smiled pleasantly at him. “He looks like an underfed hawk.”
“Yes, my queen.” They vanished, leaving Ali alone with his mother and sister.
In a second, the two women whirled on him, looming over the couch into which he’d been shoved. Neither looked happy.
Ali immediately raised his hands in a gesture of surrender. “I was going to come see you, I swear.”
“Oh? When?” Hatset crossed her arms, her smile gone. “After you’d seen everyone else in Daevabad?”
“It’s only been two days,” he protested. “It was a long journey. I needed time to recover—”
“And yet you had time to visit your brother’s wife.”
Ali’s mouth dropped. How had his mother known that? “Do you have spies among the birds now?”
“I do not share a palace with vengeful Nahids and their apothecary of poisons without knowing what they’re up to at all times.” Her expression darkened. “And that was not a visit you should have made alone. People talk.”
He bit his lip but stayed silent. He couldn’t exactly argue with her on that point.
His mother’s gaze trailed him, lingering on the scar on his temple. “What is that?”
“Just a scar,” Ali said quickly. “I injured myself quarrying rock for Bir Nabat’s canals.”
Hatset continued studying him. “You look like you just robbed a caravan,” she assessed bluntly and then wrinkled her nose. “Smell like it too. Why have you not been to the hammam and changed into something that doesn’t have the blood of God only knows who all over it?”
Ali scowled. He had a very good reason for avoiding the hammam: he didn’t want anyone catching a glimpse of the scars covering his body. “I like this robe,” he said defensively.
Zaynab looked like she was struggling not to laugh. She fell into the seat beside him. “I’m sorry,” she rushed to say when Hatset threw her an exasperated glare. “I mean … did you think his personality would improve out there?”
“Yes,” Hatset replied sharply. “I’d hope after being sent to Am Gezira to die, he’d be sharper. Your appearance shapes your public image, Alizayd, and wandering around Daevabad in bloody rags looking like a lost sheep is not particularly impressive.”
A little offended, Ali retorted, “Is that what you’re doing with that poor family, then? Dressing them up, parading them around in order to shape your image?”
Hatset narrowed her eyes. “What are their names?”
“What?”
“Their names. What are the names of the people you put a target on?” She pressed on when Ali flustered. “You don’t know, do you? Then I’ll tell you. The woman is Mariam, a shafit from Sumatra. Her husband is Ashok and their daughter is Manat. Despite the city’s problems, they’ve been managing fine. So well, in fact, that Ashok’s success in running a food stall attracted the jealousy of one of their neighbors, who gave them up to that foul trader’s roaming goons. But Ashok likes cooking, so I’ve gotten him a position in the palace kitchens and rooms where he may live with his wife while she attends me in the harem and her daughter takes lessons with the other children.”
Ali was chastened, but not enough to be unsuspicious. “And why would you do such a thing?”
“Someone needed to fix my son’s mistake.” When Ali flushed, she continued, “I’m also a believer, and it is a great sin to abuse the shafit. Trust me when I say I find what’s happening in Daevabad to be as abhorrent as you do.”
“My ‘cousin’ Musa said a very similar thing before sabotaging my village’s well in an effort to force his cargo upon me,” Ali replied. “I take it you were behind that as well?”
There was a moment of silence, the two women exchanging a look before Zaynab spoke up, her voice uncharacteristically abashed. “That … that might have been my idea.” When Ali spun on her, she gave him a helpless look. “I was worried you would never come back! My messengers said it seemed like you were settling in!”
“I was! It was nice.” Ali couldn’t believe what he was hearing. He pressed his hands against his knees, fighting his temper. The plot might have been Zaynab’s, but this was a game his mother had started. “But maybe if we’re going to speak so plainly we can talk about the reason I was sent to Am Gezira in the first place.”
His mother actually smiled. It was a little unnerving, seeing that sharp delighted grin he’d been told more than once that he shared. The years had not aged Hatset like they had his father. She was every inch the queen, and she straightened up as if he’d issued her a challenge, adjusting her shayla like it was battle armor.
“Zaynab, my love …,” she started slowly, not taking her eyes from Ali. A prickle of fear danced over the nape of his neck. “Would you mind leaving us?”
His sister glanced between them, looking alarmed. “Maybe I should stay.”
“You should go.” His mother’s careful smile didn’t waver as she took a seat on the opposite couch, but her voice had an authoritative edge. “Your brother clearly has some things he’d like to say to me.”
Zaynab sighed and stood. “Good luck, akhi.” She squeezed his shoulder again and was gone.
“Alu,” Hatset said, in a tone that made Ali fairly certain he was about to be slapped again, “I know you’re not insinuating that the woman who carried and birthed you, enormous potato head and all, was involved in that idiotic conspiracy with the Tanzeem.”
Ali swallowed. “Abba said they had Ayaanle backers,” he said, defending himself. “That one of them was your cousin—”
“Indeed, one of them was. Was,” his mother repeated, the deadly intent clear in her voice. “I don’t deal lightly with those who risk the lives of the ones I love. And on some half-baked scheme at that.” She rolled her eyes. “A revolution. How unnecessarily bloody.”
“You sound more annoyed by the method than by the idea of treason.”
“And?” Hatset picked up a fragrant cup of tea from a nearby table, taking a sip. “You’re looking at the wrong person if you expect me to defend your father’s rule. He’s been going astray for years. You clearly agreed with that assessment if you were willing to join the Tanzeem.”
He winced, her words finding their mark. He had disagreed—violently—with his father’s handling of the shafit. He still very much did. “I was just trying to help the shafit,” he insisted. “There was nothing political in it.”
His mother gave him an almost pitying look. “There is nothing nonpolitical about someone named ‘Zaydi al Qahtani’ trying to help the shafit.”
At that, Ali dropped his gaze. His name didn’t feel like an inspiration these days—it felt like a burden. “He was certainly better at it than I.”
Hatset sighed and then moved to sit beside him. “You are still so much the boy I remember,” she said, her voice softer. “From the time you could walk, you’d follow me through the harem, babbling about everything you could see. The smallest things would fill you with delight, with wonder … The other women declared you the most curious child they’d ever encountered. The sweetest.” Her eyes flashed with old betrayal. “Then Ghassan took you from me. They locked you away in the Citadel, put a zulfiqar in your hand, and taught you to be your brother’s weapon.” Her voice hitched on the last word. “But still I see that innocence in you. That goodness.”
Ali didn’t know what to say to that. He ran his fingers over the striped blue silk of the couch. It felt soft as a rosebud, far finer than anything he’d sat on in Am Gezira, and yet that was where he ached to be, assassins be damned. A place where helping others was a simple matter of digging a well. “That goodness has gotten me nowhere in Daevabad. Everyone I try to help ends up worse off.”
“You don’t stop fighting a war just because you’re losing battles, Alizayd. You change tactics. Surely, that’s a lesson you learned in the Citadel.”
Ali shook his head. They were veering too close to a conversation he didn’t want to have. “There’s no war to be won here. Not by me. Abba wanted to teach me a lesson, and I’ve learned it. I’ll stay in the Citadel with a zulfiqar in my hand and my mouth firmly shut until Navasatem.”
“While down the street, shafit are auctioned off like cattle?” Hatset challenged. “While your brothers in the Royal Guard are reduced to training with blunt knives and eating spoiled food so nobles can feast and dance during the holiday?”
“I can’t help them. And you’re hardly innocent in this,” Ali accused. “Do you think I don’t know the games the Ayaanle are playing with Daevabad’s economy?”
Hatset returned his glare. “You are far too clever to believe the Ayaanle are the only reason for Daevabad’s financial problems. We are a scapegoat; a slight diminishment in taxes does not do the damage I know you’ve seen. Keeping a third of the population in slavery and squalor does. Oppressing another third to the point where they self-segregate does.” Her tone grew intent. “People do not thrive under tyrants, Alizayd; they do not come up with innovations when they’re busy trying to stay alive, or offer creative ideas when error is punished by the hooves of a karkadann.”
Ali rose to his feet, wishing he could refute her words. “Go tell these things to Muntadhir. He is the emir.”
“Muntadhir doesn’t have it in him to act.” Hatset’s voice was surprisingly kind. “I like your brother. He is the most charming man I know, and he too has a good heart. But your father has carved his beliefs into Muntadhir deeper than you realize. He will reign as Ghassan does: so afraid of his people that he crushes them.”
Ali paced, fighting the water that wanted to burst from his hands. “And what would you have me do, Amma?”
“Help him,” Hatset insisted. “You don’t need to be a weapon to be an asset.”
He was already shaking his head. “Muntadhir hates me,” he said bitterly, the blunt statement salting the wound his brother had inflicted when Ali first returned. “He’s not going to listen to anything I say.”
“He doesn’t hate you. He’s hurt, he’s lost, and he’s lashing out. But those are dangerous impulses when a man has as much power as your brother, and he’s going down a path from which he might not be able to return.” Her voice darkened. “And that path, Alu? It might present you with choices far worse than talking to him.”
Ali was suddenly conscious of the water in the pitcher on the table next to him, in the fountains lining the pavilion, and in the pipes under the floor. It pulled on him, feeding off his mounting agitation.
“I can’t talk about this right now, Amma.” He ran his hands over his face, pulling at his beard.
Hatset stilled. “What is that on your wrist?”
Ali glanced down, his heart skipping as he realized the sleeve of his damn robe had fallen back once more. He kicked himself. After his encounter with Nahri, he’d sworn he’d find something new to wear. But uniforms at the Citadel had been scarce, and he hated to inconvenience the already struggling men.
Hatset was on her feet and at his side before Ali could respond; he hadn’t actually realized his mother could move so quickly. She grabbed his arm. Ali tried to pull back, but not wanting to hurt her—and underestimating her strength—he was not fast enough to block her before she’d shoved the sleeve back to his shoulder.
She gasped, pressing the bumpy edge of the scar that wrapped his wrist. “Where did you get this?” she asked, alarm rising in her voice.
Ali panicked. “Am-Am Gezira,” he stammered. “It’s nothing. An old injury.”
Her gaze trailed his body again. “You haven’t been to the hammam …,” she said, echoing her earlier words. “Nor taken off this filthy robe.” Her eyes darted to his. “Alu … are there more of these scars on your body?”
Ali’s stomach dropped. She’d asked the question far too knowingly.
“Take it off.” His mother was pulling the robe from his shoulders before he could move. Underneath, he wore a sleeveless tunic and a waist-wrap that came to his calves.
Hatset inhaled. She grabbed his arms, examining the scars that crossed his skin. Her fingers lingered at the ragged line crocodile teeth had torn just below his collarbone, and then she picked up his hand, touching the seared impression of a large fishing hook. Horror filled her eyes. “Alizayd, how did you get these?”
Ali trembled, torn between the promise he’d made to his father not to speak of that night and his desperate desire to know what had happened to him beneath the lake’s dark water. Ghassan had implied that the Ayaanle had an ancient tie to the marid—that they’d used them to aid in the conquest of Daevabad—and during his darkest days, Ali had been terribly tempted to find someone from his mother’s homeland and beg for information.
He said no one could know. Abba said no one could ever know.
Hatset must have seen the indecision warring in his expression. “Alu, look at me.” She took his face between her hands, forcing him to meet her gaze. “I know you don’t trust me. I know we have our differences. But this? This goes beyond all that. I need you to tell me the truth. Where did you get these scars?”
He stared into her warm gold eyes—the eyes that had comforted Ali since he was a child skinning his elbows while climbing trees in the harem—and the truth tumbled out. “The lake,” he said, his voice the barest of whispers. “I fell in the lake.”
“The lake?” she repeated. “Daevabad’s lake?” Her eyes went wide. “Your fight with the Afshin. I heard he knocked you overboard, but that you caught yourself before you reached the water.”
Ali shook his head. “Not quite,” he replied, his throat catching.
She took a deep breath. “Oh, baba … here I am discussing politics …” She held on to his hands. “Tell me what happened.”
Ali shook his head. “I don’t remember much. Darayavahoush shot me. I lost my balance and fell in the water. There was something in it, some sort of presence tearing at me, tearing through my mind, and when it saw the Afshin …” He shuddered. “Whatever it was, it was so angry, Amma. It said it needed my name.”
“Your name?” Hatset’s voice rose. “Did you give it?”
He nodded, ashamed. “It forced these visions upon me. Daevabad destroyed, all of you murdered …” His voice broke. “It made me see them again and again, all while it attached itself to me, biting and ripping at my skin. Zaynab and Muntadhir were screaming for me to save them, to give my name and I … I broke.” He could barely say the last words.
Hatset pulled him into a hug. “You didn’t break, child,” she insisted, stroking his back. “You couldn’t have fought them.”
Nerves fluttered in his stomach. “You know what it was, then?”
His mother nodded, pulling back to touch the hooked scar in his palm. “I’m Ayaanle. I know what leaves these marks.”
The word lay unsaid between them another moment, and then Ali couldn’t bear it. “It was a marid, wasn’t it? A marid did this.”
He didn’t miss the way her gold eyes flickered around the pavilion before she replied—that she did so for this and not while discussing treason was telling. And not reassuring. “Yes.” She let go of his hands. “What happened after you gave your name?”
Ali swallowed. “It took over me. Muntadhir said it looked like I was possessed, that I was speaking a strange language.” He bit his lip. “It used me to kill Darayavahoush, but I don’t remember anything between giving my name and waking up in the infirmary.”
“The infirmary?” His mother’s voice was sharp. “Does that Nahid girl know—”
“No.” The danger in the question and a tug of old loyalty pushed the lie from his lips. “She wasn’t there. Only Abba and Muntadhir know what happened.”
Hatset’s eyes narrowed. “Your father knew the marid did all this to you and still he sent you to Am Gezira?”
Ali grimaced but could not deny the relief coursing through him. It felt so good to finally talk about all this with someone who knew more, someone who could help him. “I’m not sure I would have survived Am Gezira if the marid hadn’t possessed me.”
She frowned. “What do you mean?”
He looked at her in surprise. “My abilities, Amma. You must realize that’s what’s behind my irrigation work.”
Too late, he recognized the horror crossing her face. “Your abilities?” she repeated.
His heart raced at the shock in her voice. “My … my abilities with water. Abba said the Ayaanle had a relationship with the marid. You recognized their marks …” Desperate hope clawed up in Ali’s chest. “That means this happens to djinn back in Ta Ntry, doesn’t it?”
“No, baba …” Hatset took his hands in hers again. “Not like this. We find …” She cleared her throat. “We find bodies, love. Bodies with marks like yours. Djinn fishermen who stay out past sundown, human children lured to the riverbank. They’re murdered, drowned, and drained.”
Ali reeled. Bodies? “But I thought …” He choked on the words. “Didn’t our ancestors revere the marid?”
Hatset shook her head. “I don’t know what was between our ancestors, but the marid have been a terror as long as I’ve been alive. We keep it to ourselves; we’d rather handle our own business than invite foreign soldiers into Ta Ntry. And the attacks are rare. We’ve learned to avoid the places they like.”
Ali was struggling to comprehend what he was hearing. “Then how did I survive?”
His mother—his always savvy mother—looked equally at a loss. “I don’t know.”
A door hinge creaked, and Ali yanked his robe back on so fast he heard some of the stitches tear. By the time a pair of servants joined them, Hatset’s face was calm; but he didn’t miss the grief with which she’d watched him move.
She offered a small smile to the servants as they set down a tray of covered silver platters. “Thank you.”
They removed the tops, and Ali’s heart and stomach gave a leap at the familiar smells of the Ntaran dishes he’d loved as a child. Fried plaintains and anise-spiced rice, fish steamed in banana leaf with ginger and grated coconut, and syrupy dumplings.
“I remember your favorites,” Hatset said softly when they were alone again. “A mother doesn’t forget something like that.”
Ali didn’t respond. He didn’t know what to say. The answers he’d wanted for years about the marid had left worse questions and more mysteries in their wake. What happened to him wasn’t something that happened to other Ayaanle. The marid were a terror in Ta Ntry, monsters to be feared.
Monsters who had saved him. Ali shifted, completely on edge. The possession in the lake had been vicious, but his abilities after had felt … calming. The solace when he ran his hands through a canal, the near playfulness with which new springs bubbled beneath his feet. What was that all supposed to mean?
His mother touched his wrist. “Alu, it’s okay,” she said, breaking the silence. “You’re alive. That’s all that matters now. Whatever the marid did to you … it’s over.”
“That’s just it, Amma … it’s not over,” Ali said softly. “It’s getting worse. Ever since I came back to Daevabad … I feel like these things are inside me, slipping over my skin, whispering in my head … and if I lose control …” He shivered. “People used to kill djinn they suspected of cavorting with the marid.”
“That’s not going to happen,” she declared firmly. “Not to you. I’ll take care of this.”
Ali bit his lip, wanting to believe her but seeing little way out of a mess it was clear neither of them understood. “How?”
“First, we fix … this,” she said, waving a hand over his body. “You’ll use my hammam from now on. Send the servants away with one of your rants about modesty, and they’ll have no problem letting you bathe alone. I also have an Agnivanshi tailor I trust completely. I’ll tell him your scars are from the Afshin and you want them hidden. I’m sure he can design you some new clothes to do so.”
“Alizayd the Afshin-slayer,” he repeated grimly. “How fortunate that I’m known for killing a man who liked to scourge his opponents.”
“It’s a stroke of fortune I’ll take,” Hatset replied. “In the meantime, I’m going to reach out to a scholar I’m acquainted with. He can be a bit … difficult. But he probably knows more about the marid than anyone else alive.”
Hope rose in Ali’s voice. “And you think he can help us?”
“It’s worth a try. For now, put this business with the marid out of your mind. And eat.” Hatset pushed the platters at him. “I’d like to have you looking like less of a wraith by week’s end.”
Ali picked up a pitcher of rosewater to rinse his hands. “Why by week’s end?”
“Because that’s when your father is holding a feast to celebrate your return.”
Ali scowled, plucking a bit of rice and stew from the plate with his fingers. “I wish he’d hold a feast to send me somewhere that isn’t a marid-haunted island surrounded by a cursed lake.”
“He’s not going to be sending you anywhere if I have any say in it.” She poured a cup of tamarind juice and pushed it in his direction. “I just got you back, baba.” Her voice was fierce. “And if I have to fight some marid to keep you, so be it.”